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“Let us go, you and I, on two paths: You, to a second life, promised
to you by language in a reader who might survive the fall of a comet on
earth. I, to a rendezvous I postponed more than once, with a death I
promised a glass of red wine in a poem.” -Mahmoud Darwish (trans. Sinan Antoon)

“Darwish
left behind,” writes Sinan Antoon, “an entire continent of poems
whispering and singing inside Arabic and calling on us to reacquaint
ourselves with its topography.” The feature includes a poem written by
Mahmoud Darwish earlier this year, At the Station of a Train which Fell Off the Map,
translated by Sinan Antoon. In addition we present a foretaste from
Mahmoud Darwish’s last collection, with a selection of poems from the
collection, that wll be published by Saqi Books next year as If I Were a Stone, translated by Catherine Cobham.

The feature
includes rare photographs of Mahmoud Darwish taken in the last months
of his life as he worked with Arts Alliance Productions on their film
project Identity of the Soul, which screened open-air shows to packed
audiences in Palestine in October.Part 3 of our series on Contemporary Syrian Literature
opens with poems by Adonis, selected from Mihyar of Damascus: His
Songs, a new volume in translation from BOA Editions. There is also
fiction from Fawwaz Haddad, who is long-listed for the 2008-09
International Prize for Arabic Fiction, from Khalil al-Neimi’s
intriguing novel, In Praise of Deserting, with short stories from
Ibrahim Samuel and Gladys Matar, and poems from Hussein Bin Hamza.

Banipal
33 includes many book reviews to whet readers’ appetites. They include
The Butterfly’s Burden by Mahmoud Darwish, which won the 2008 Saif
Ghobash–Banipal Prize for Arabic Literary Translation for its
translator Fady Joudah, as well as a review of his own award-winning
poetry collection, The Earth in the Attic. A sheaf of novels in
translation is reviewed, including The Year of the Revolutionary
Bread-Making Machine by Hassan Daoud, Wild Mulberries by Iman Humaydan
Younes, Nuit de l’étranger by Habib Selmi, Hakawati by Rabih Almeddine,
The Collar and the Bracelet by Yahya Taher Abdullah, Gold Dust by
Ibrahim al-Koni, and The Journals of Sarab Affan by Jabra Ibrahim
Jabra, as well as The Road from Damascus by Robin Yassin-Kassab,
Contemporary Iraqi Fiction, An Anthology by Shakir Mustafa, and Denys
Johnson Davies reviews David Tresilian’s A Brief Introduction to Modern
Arabic Literature.

LIST OF CONTENTS

Cover photograph of Mahmoud Darwish is by Arts Alliance Productions

FEATURE: THE PRESENT ABSENT MAHMOUD DARWISH

EDITORIAL by Sinan Antoon – An Entourage of Violins and Clouds

Mahmoud Darwish – Poem At the Station of a Train Which Fell off the Map translated by Sinan Antoon

Mahmoud Darwish – Poems from forthcoming volume If I were a Stone translated by Catherine Cobham